best books on education 2022

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Book(s) of The Year, 2022

| Alex Usher

Morning everyone.  Y’all know the drill: every December I come along and tell you what I’ve read in the world of higher education, let you know the stars and dogs, as well as give out a “book of the year prize”.  Two reminders: first, that I did a summary of my (considerable) reading from the first half of the year back here , and not everything I read is something that came out this year, so “books of the year” aren’t necessarily new.

Ready?  Here we go.

Let’s start with fiction. A Hero of Our Time by Naben Ruthnum is a reasonably engaging tale of the son of a University of Toronto professor working for an EdTech company which wants to put professors out of business and has a line manager who deeply resembles Elizabeth Holmes.   It’s not really a campus novel, but close enough to pass.  Elaine Hsieh Chou’s Disorient ation is a more straightforward 2000s campus novel, dealing with issues of ethnicity and equity on campus, only with the twist that the Asian graduate student struggling with a dissertation topic she hates makes an odd and controversial discovery about the poet at the centre of her studies.  It’s…ok.  If you’re looking for a campus novel, it’s worth a read, but not sure I would put it ahead of any other decent work of fiction you may have on your shelf.   And finally, there’s Richard Russo’s Straight Man , about a hapless English Department Chair at a regional university in Pennsylvania during a time of deep budget cuts (there’s some added poignance here if you’ve been following the stories about the campus amalgamations in PA lately).  It’s fun and worth your time – the main character has more than whiff of Wilt about him, albeit an Amercanized version without the sex farce – but if novels aren’t your thing, AMC is developing a series based on the book with Bob Odenkirk (!) in the lead role and it’s due for release next year, so maybe just wait for that.

For nonfiction, one book I was happy to read this year was Universities and Colleges , written by David Palfreyman and Paul Temple as part of Oxford University Press’ “A Very Short introduction” series.  It’s a truly excellent 150-page description of the origins of universities and how higher education institutions work – maybe the best short introduction to the field ever written.  Now, mind you, I am not entirely sure who inside the system needs a book like this –new employees who need on-boarding perhaps? – but it’s a brilliant short overview the field. 

There are a lot of books out in the last 12 months on how – one way or another – American higher education is being destroyed by the underfunding of higher education and student loan-backed higher tuition fees (and, to a lesser extent, how this can be reversed).  You can avoid most of them: I would argue that the only one which is a must-read is Wrecked: Deinstitutionalization and Partial Defenses in State Higher Education Policy by Barrett J. Taylor.  As I wrote back here , I am not entirely convinced by parts of his thesis, but at the very least it’s a good example on how to do case studies in higher education.  Two good books on how families have coped with ever-higher fees are Josh Mitchell’s  The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe  and Caitlin Zaloom’s Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost .  Both suffer a bit from the journalistic tendency to look at edge cases rather than medians and so on the whole both over-dramatize the affordability problem to some extent.  However, I found the latter book interesting because of the way it zeroes in on a peculiarly American notion of parenting in which an inability to meet a child’s desire with respect to college choice is seen as a moral failing. The result: parents don’t have hard conversations about cost and affordability with their children, which in the long run means a lot more debt both for families and children.  Excellent insights all around.

In terms of books which focused on the questions of how to deal with some of the current dilemmas in North American higher education, there was Design for Change in Higher Education by Jeffrey Grabill, Sarah Gretter and Erik Skogsberg which on the whole was pretty forgettable.  The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present and Uncertain Future by Arthur Levine and Scott van Pelt is a less-interesting remake of Kevin Carey’s 2015 book The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere – though like Carey’s book it has some good historical sketches, particularly with respect to change at leading institutions in the latter half of the 19th century. The Great Upheaval is overly credulous about imminent change in higher education mainly because the employer perspective is almost completely absent (trust me on this one: employers are the main barrier to change, because they find the idea of having to navigate a radically decentralized higher education market with tons of new and badly-defined competency-based credentials to be incredibly annoying).   My two top picks in this area would be Pivot: A Vision for the New University by Mark Lombardi and Joanne Soliday (longer review back here ) which looks at distinctive survival turn-around strategies of small institutions, and The Empowered University , by the University of Maryland’s Freeman A. Hrabowski, which is one of this decade’s most interesting discussions of institutional cultures and how to change them.

There were a flood of books from the US about race and the academy in North America over the past few years, mainly (I suspect) because a lot of university publishers wanted to demonstrate relevance in the era of #BlackLivesMatter.  These include books like, The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom , The State Must Provide: the Definitive History of Racial Inequality on American Higher Education , and To Drink from the Well: The Struggle for Racial Equality at the Nation’s Oldest Public University (i.e. University of North Carolina).    On the Canadian side, there was The Equity Myth: Racialization and Indigeneity at Canadian Universities   by several authors. It was solid, but notably tended to be overly focussed on faculty rather than students (which is easy to understand when you look at census data and see how visible minority out-attain non visible minority students in this country).  I wouldn’t call any one of these a must-read; on the other hand, if you aren’t reading anything on this subject, you’re not really keeping up with the times.

Partially because I find the American scene a little dull and unimaginative, some of the best books I read this year were about higher education and how it is viewed outside North America.  The best two were Reforms, Organizational Change and Performance in Higher Education: A Comparative Account from the Nordic Countries  (Pinheiro et al, eds.), which is a top-notch mixed-methods piece comparative research into how educational institutions are actually managed. Highly recommended.  Elizabeth Buckner’s  Degrees of Dignity: Arab Higher Education in the Global Era  was a standout piece about a region that gets all too little attention in English.  To these I would add Secret Cults in Nigerian Terti ary Institutions by Daniel Offing, which is the definitive history of gang violence in Nigerian universities from the 1960s to the 1990s (an admittedly niche subject which I wrote about back here ) and Study Gods: How the New Chinese Elite Prepare for Global Competition by Yu-Lin Chiang, an excellent ethnographic study of elite Chinese high school graduates which I described in more detail back here .

My runner-up for book of the year was Canadian (which I think might be a first): University Governance in Canada: Navigating Complexity byJulia Eastman, Glen Jones, Claude Trottier and Olivier Bégin-Caouette. It is probably the best book about Canadian higher education since David Cameron’s More Than an Academic Question , and in some ways more impressive because it gets into the guts of how an institution is actually run.  As I noted in my full review back here , I think it is let down a bit in the drafting, so it is more a book which contains a lot of great stuff than a great book in and of itself, but still, I recommend it highly.

And now, for book of the year…I am going to wimp out a bit and divide this one in two.  The best higher education book of 2022 has to go to Empire of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to American to China by William C. Kirby, which I reviewed back here .  This is a highly nuanced book about eight universities in three countries and why they have succeeded over time.  If there is a criticism to be made here, it is that the title teases the idea that Chinese universities might play a role in the 21 st century equivalent to those played by American ones in the 20 th Century and German ones in the 19 th , a proposition I don’t think stands up to much scrutiny.  But overall, it is a great book mixing analyses of national traditions with some useful institutional case studies.

The other book that deserves recognition is a book by Ethan Shrum which came out – rather unheralded, which is why I only read it this year – in 2019, called The Instrumental University: Education in the Service of the National Agenda After World War II .  This is a wonderful book on American universities in the 1950s and 1960s which challenges the notion – widely spread by people who like to use the term “academic capitalism” as an epithet – that the notion of universities being “useful to society” is somehow a product of post-1970s neo-liberalism.  In fact, as the book points out, it has its origins in the social sciences and their relation to progressive movements in the years before World War II, and came to fruition really under the Truman, Kennedy and Johnson administrations as institutions aspired to develop non-disciplinary “Organized Research Units” (ORUs) to play the role of handmaidens to technocratic high modernism then in fashion in government.  As a work of history it is absolutely excellent – though I would argue it is worth reading with two other excellent books: Seeing the World: How US Universities Make Knowledge in a Global Era  (Stevens, Miller-Idriss and Shami) to give you a sense of how the balance of power between ORUs and departments has swung back in the latter’s favour over time, and Jenny Lee (ed) The US Power in International Higher Education , which is not a great book in an of itself, but represents a view of the intertwining of American institutional internationalization efforts and government use of higher education as a form of soft power which is much more understandable once you’ve read Shrum.

Happy reading!

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December 21, 2022

The best of 2022

raldrich | Book Lists

The books that everyone was talking about this year

For some, the biggest end-of-year traditions might be holidays and hot chocolate, family and festivities, or the first snowfall and all the merriment that comes with it. Our favorite end-of-year tradition is gathering ‘round… to pore over the latest best-of book lists. It’s an opportunity to reflect on a year in publishing and, more importantly, to count just how many of the top picks made their way onto our bedside tables.

This year, we are honored to count many of our own books among the “best of the year.” Read on below, and sign up for our newsletter to be the first to hear about our next “best” books.

Out of Touch: How to Survive an Intimacy Famine by Michelle Drouin

Included in new scientist’s best nonfiction books of 2022 ; and a n mit press reader excerpt of the book was included in pocket’s most read articles of 2022.

“Michelle Drouin’s Out of Touch offers a survey of the same territory, after Covid-19. The psychologist challenges the idea that technology can ever ‘stand in’ for activities rooted in society and biology.” — New Scientist

Redesigning Work: How to Transform Your Organization and Make Hybrid Work for Everyone by Lynda Gratton

Included in financial times ’ best books of the year.

“Professor and consultant Lynda Gratton seeks out real-world examples of how innovative employers, from Fujitsu to HSBC, are creating and managing hybrid and flexible working. With characteristic verve, she lays out four practical steps towards reshaping your business for the imminent arrival of the future of work.” — Financial Times

The Exquisite Machine: The New Science of the Heart by Sian E. Harding

Included in healthcentral’s best holiday gifts of 2022.

“For the ever-curious reader on your list: Author Sian Harding, Ph.D., a professor of cardiac pharmacology at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College, London, explores the relationship between emotions and function in The Exquisite Machine , a book with real heart.” — HealthCentral

Carbon Queen: The Remarkable Life of Nanoscience Pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus by Maia Weinstock

Included in physics today’s books that stood out in 2022.

“Science writer Maia Weinstock documents how Dresselhaus overcame a hardscrabble background in the Bronx in the 1930s and 1940s and rampant sexism from, for example, the Cornell faculty to rise to the top of her field. Dresselhaus’s work on carbon fullerenes, among many other materials, led to her receiving the titular nickname ‘carbon queen.’ Reviewer Mary Jo Nye calls the book ‘engaging and inspirational.’” — Physics Today

Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births by Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick

Included in the guardian’s best designs of 2022.

“A long-overdue, taboo-busting project that kickstarts some much-needed conversations about the impact design and material culture continue to have on the lived reality of motherhood.” — the Guardian

The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be by Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner

Included in forbes’ best higher education books of 2022  .

“Based on more than 2,000 interviews with students, faculty, staff, parents and other stakeholders at ten institutions ranging from highly selective colleges to less selective universities, the authors explore how colleges achieve (or don’t) what they contend should be higher education’s ultimate goal—the cultivation of Higher Education Capital (HEDCAP)—the ‘ability to attend, analyze, connect and communicate on issues of importance and interest.’ The authors… recommend how colleges can enhance student learning, addressing the two ‘most surprising’ discoveries typifying students at the ten schools—concerns about mental health and feelings of isolation and alienation.” — Forbes

The Smart Mission: NASA’s Lessons for Managing Knowledge, People, and Projects by Edward J. Hoffman, Matthew Kohut and Laurence Prusak

Included in next big idea club’s top 20 leadership books of 2022.

This paradigm-shifting book—by three project management experts, all of whom have decades of experience at NASA and elsewhere—challenges the conventional wisdom on project management, focusing on the human dimension: learning, collaboration, teaming, communication, and culture.

Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work by Ruchika Tulshyan

An eye-opening look at how organizations can foster diversity, equity, and inclusion, taking action to address and prevent workplace bias while centering women of color.

Design after Capitalism: Transforming Design Today for an Equitable Tomorrow by Matthew Wizinsky

Included in fastcompany’s best design books of 2022.

“It’s no small feat that Wizinsky is able to take two big ideas—capitalism and design—and synthesize them into a human-scale narrative. Design After Capitalism is part alternative history of design and capitalism entanglements, part case studies of post- and anti-capitalist design from around the world, and part tool kit to begin imagining new ways of design—ways of talking about it, ways of practicing it, and ways of engaging with it that could exist in a post-capitalist future.” — FastCompany

The Nexus: Augmented Thinking For a Complex World and the New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science by Julio Mario Ottino with Bruce Mau

Included in artificiality’s best books of ‘22.

“A fabulous, visually stunning journey of complexity. New ways to think about convergence across different fields giving rise to different opportunities and problems. For readers who revel in multidisciplinary approaches and seek inspiration through linking and association of many ideas.” — Artificiality

How to Stay Smart in a Smart World: Why Human Intelligence Still Beats Algorithms by Gerd Gigerenzer

Included in behavioral scientist’s notable books of 2022 ; library journal’s best science and technology books of 2022 ; and artificiality’s best books of ‘22.

“Gerd’s latest book lays out the logic for human strengths against machines and algorithms. For readers who want more detail and useful ideas for when not to look for an algorithm and when to use simple human-level structures over complex machines and data.” — Artificiality

The Squares: US Physical and Engineering Scientists in the Long 1970s by Cyrus C. M. Mody

Although historians tend to be attracted to revolutionaries or iconoclasts, most individuals don’t fall into those categories. In The Squares , historian Cyrus Mody examines what it was like to be an ordinary, or ‘square,’ physicist during the 1970s. Reviewer Michael Gordin wryly remarks that the squares are ‘fortunate that a person of Mody’s talents has taken them up.’” — Physics Today

Microprediction: Building an Open AI Network by Peter Cotton

Named as rebellion research’s 2022 book of the year.

“In an engaging, colloquial style, Dr. Cotton argues that market-inspired ‘superminds’ are likely to be very effective compared with other orchestration mechanisms in the domain of microprediction.” —Rebellion Research

Sexus Animalis: There Is Nothing Unnatural in Nature by Emmanuelle Pouydebat

Included in new scientist’s best nonfiction books of 2022.

“In Sexus Animalis , natural history researcher Emmanuelle Pouydebat finds lessons of another kind as she peers through the keyhole of animal sexuality. In justifying her subtitle ‘There is nothing unnatural in nature,’ she reminds us about the sheer breadth and diversity of animal behaviors, including our own.” — New Scientist

In the Black Fantastic by Ekow Eshun

Included in aarp’s book gift ideas of 2022 ; the globe and mail’s best books to gift this year ; and the new york times’ coffee table gift books for 2022.

“For a unique gift, consider this gorgeous book—an illustrated interpretation of Black culture through wildly imaginative art and photography from across the world, broken up into themes like “migration” and “liberation,” by British writer and curator Eshun.” — AARP

Master of the Two Left Feet: Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered by Richard Meyer

Included in new yorker’s best books of 2022.

“This biography of the self-taught painter Morris Hirshfield (1872-1946) is also a study of the vagaries of artistic reputation. Meyer situates Hirshfield’s idiosyncratic output in the popular imagery and fine art of the period, suggesting that he was savvier than his early admirers knew.” — New Yorker

The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis by Nate G. Hilger

Included in greater good’s favorite parenting books of 2022.

“ Parent Trap  highlights the folly in expecting parents to shoulder the complete responsibility for their children’s skill development, because it leads to success for only a fraction of children whose parents are wealthy. Hilger wants to stop overwhelming parents with unrealistic expectations and provide them with professional support and resources to help their children thrive and fulfill their potential.” — Greater Good

Stars in Your Hand: A Guide to 3D Printing the Cosmos by Kimberly Arcand and Megan Watzke 

“Armchair space travel is a passive business, but Kimberly Arcand and Megan Watzke give their readers plenty to do in Stars in Your Hand , their guide to 3D printing the cosmos.” — New Scientist

Imaginary Languages: Myths, Utopias, Fantasies, Illusions, and Linguistic Fictions by Marina Yaguello

“Expanding on a study published in France in 1984, a noted linguist surveys the history of language invention, an enterprise undertaken by centuries of ‘lunatic lovers of language,’ for reasons philosophical, political, artistic, and arcane. The mind-bending nature of the book’s subject, which offers seemingly infinite paths of inquiry, could overwhelm, but Yaguello relates the material with gusto, offering an idiosyncratic, illuminating perspective on the development of Western thought.” — New Yorker

Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media for Equity and Justice by Katerina Cizek and William Uricchio

“An important reset in perspective about co-creation: what happens when we rethink attribution and structure creativity around justice. For readers who wonder about different ways of innovating for social justice and don’t want to see the term co-creation be simply co-opted as the next innovation buzzword.” — Artificiality

On Bramante by Pier Paolo Tamburelli

Included in the new york times’s best art books of 2022.

“This book is a rare effort to rethink our present deadlocks through historical models—and its ironic Neo-Classicism is beautifully buttressed by Bas Princen’s spare photographs of Bramante nerve centers: Milan’s Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Leonardo painted ‘The Last Supper’ or the cloisters of Rome’s Santa Maria della Pace.” — The New York Times

Sandfuture by Justin Beal

Included in archinect’s 2022 holiday gift guide.

“This title from MIT Press about the life of late World Trade Center designer Minoru Yamasaki is both a compelling and technically precise account of not only the architect but also the city during times of unprecedented change and challenges. In 256 pages, [Beal] offers a very readable depiction of the construction of Yamasaki’s tragic masterpiece and the bridge to our era that followed its highly-televised destruction.” — Archinect

The Spider’s Thread: Metaphor in Mind, Brain, and Poetry by Keith J. Holyoak

An mit press reader article about the book was included in longread’s top 5 of the year.

Cognitive psychologist and poet Keith Holyoak explores whether artificial intelligence could ever achieve poetic authenticity.

What Not by Rose Macaulay

Included in first things’ bookish gift guide.

“Let us suppose that among your friends is someone who reads a great deal of fiction and loves Rose Macaulay’s 1956 novel The Towers of Trebizond but is unlikely to be a Macaulay completist, hence unlikely to have looked at her 1918 novel What Not , set in a (then) near-future England and now reissued by MIT Press in their very interesting Radium Age series, with an introduction by Matthew De Abaitua. It’s a very odd but absorbing book, with thematic links to The Towers of Trebizond .” — First Things

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8 Essential Higher Ed Books to Help You Navigate 2022

Assigned reading for anyone looking to get through a time of great uncertainty

Harleen Dhami

If you’re starting to think that 2022 is looking an awful lot like 2020, you’re not alone. Yet despite modality pivots and new COVID policies to grapple with, this year still offers a great deal of hope. We’re spotlighting eight books that’ll help make your classroom a place of equity, connection and discovery—no matter where you teach. 

→ Free teaching toolkits: Get the support you need to run your next online or hybrid course

1. Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (2003)

There’s an ever-growing need to combine care with commitment, knowledge and trust in the classroom in order to create the best climate for learning. In this book, the late bell hooks, an American author, professor and social activist, advocates for teaching experiences that cultivate community, diversity and inclusivity. Through critical analysis and autobiographical narratives, hooks will leave you with a refreshed set of values to weave throughout your instruction, such as bringing an anti-racist lens to your curriculum.

Why now? COVID variants and potential policy shifts at your college may have led to an unexpected start to the year. hooks’ insight offers the chance to become an even more progressive educator. Plus, her guidelines serve to ensure every student feels supported and seen in yet another unpredictable semester.

2. Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education (2018)

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is the perfect framework for educators today—one that involves added flexibility in how materials are delivered in order to support students of all abilities. Implementing it in your own course isn’t as scary as it seems. In this title, you’ll receive UDL coaching skills, a helpful framework including the ‘UDL in 20 minutes, 20 days and 20 months’ guide, and more micro and macro techniques to support students with and without disabilities.

Why now? The pandemic has only magnified countless inequities. Two examples: struggling to connect to virtual classes due to poor connectivity and the challenge that comes from juggling college with familial, health and employment concerns. The authors provide essential guidelines you’ll want to take note of to improve the engagement, interaction and performance of every student.

3. The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students For a World In Flux (2022)

From outdated grading systems to passive pedagogies, many aspects of higher ed are still stuck in the past. But all hope isn’t lost, as Cathy N. Davidson, Distinguished Professor of English at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, argues. In this updated edition of one of her bestselling books, Davidson shares simple ways faculty and administrators can re-make college for our present day, giving readers a wealth of tools to help students thrive.

Why now? Davidson’s approach to addressing this moment of heightened change begins with embracing creativity and student-first learning. With the Omicron variant wreaking havoc across the nation, Davidson’s strategies are an imperative part of supporting student success in any classroom.

4. STEM, STEAM, Make, Dream: Reimagining the Culture of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (2021)

We’re naturally shifting towards a tech- and science-based world. But within it, not every student is given the same opportunities to succeed. Regardless of discipline, a solution lies in honoring culture, increasing equity and encouraging curiosity to nurture our next generation of creators and entrepreneurs. Christopher Emdin, Professor of Education at the University of Southern California, offers tangible strategies that allow for hands-on creation and shares his vision for a more inclusive and joyous learning landscape. You’ll also get to read profiles of innovative change makers who have been successful in addressing education’s most pressing issues.

Why now? The education system hasn’t always been inclusive of those from marginalized backgrounds. Whether you teach in K-12 or higher education, Emdin establishes a clear need for experiential, equitable learning and offers a barrier-breaking roadmap to help you get there. 

5. Creating a Place for Self-Care and Wellbeing in Higher Education (2021)

For those teaching in today’s world, it can be easy to put personal needs on the back burner. But supporting students starts with setting a foundation of care and empathy towards yourself. Rather than dismiss daily wellness practices in favor of getting through a stack of papers, there is, in fact, a way to juggle the demands of higher ed with your own needs. Narelle Lemon, Associate Professor of Education at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, will leave you with timely and relevant tips to prevent burnout, prioritize nurturing and reconstruct your identity to ultimately take better care of yourself.

Why now? It can be a challenge to put yourself first when concerns with student mental health, finances and basic needs are at an all-time high. Lemon outlines strategies to disrupt the current climate of dismissing wellbeing in order to practice a more balanced lifestyle.

6. Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education During COVID-19: International Perspectives and Experiences (2021)

The move to online instruction wasn’t easy—for students and faculty alike. Connection and engagement concerns were put under the spotlight, forcing educators to address these issues as best they could. But the past two years can also offer valuable lessons for any professor looking to support students today. All three authors of this comprehensive text use their backgrounds in academia to review the most common information and communication technology (ICT) challenges faced online, while remaining hopeful for the next generation of online educators and students.

Why now? Students want to feel seen and heard—especially when they’re behind a screen all day. Incorporating their voices is one place to begin, which may also help to improve student retention and overall course pass rates.

7. The Power of Partnership: Students, Staff, and Faculty Revolutionizing Higher Education (2020)

At a time where learners may experience increased loneliness and isolation, collaboration is a tool that can entirely transform a student’s outlook on college. Among a roster of 51 authors, Lucy Mercer-Mapstone, Lecturer in Higher Education Pedagogy at Elon University and Sophia Abbot, a graduate student in higher education at Elon University, mix student and faculty perspectives to illustrate the ways in which learners are given a real stake in their educational process. Plus, you’ll learn how professor-student connections can spark greater participation, satisfaction and engagement in any class.

Why now? Online learning always existed, but it’s now become a mainstay in higher ed. Before we can fix the educational system, we first need to understand where it falls short. The authors mix student and faculty experiences from March 2020 onwards to magnify lessons that can be extracted from a moment in time that no one will ever forget.

8. Communicate for a Change: Revitalizing Conversations for Higher Education (2021)

Today’s student body is more diverse than ever before. Unfortunately, college policies and faculty teaching practices don’t always celebrate and acknowledge this fact. But why is it so challenging to bring about meaningful change within academia? This book explores everything from rethinking how students learn best, to approaching discussions on race, gender, finances and more at both the administrative and faculty level. You’ll also get to hear from a diverse group of scholars who will highlight the essential questions anyone in higher ed should be asking themselves today.

Why now? The past two years have accelerated changes to higher ed policy and practices. Whether you’re a tenured professor or new to teaching, keep the momentum going by asking yourself—and your leaders—difficult questions that are proven to maximize engagement and value for any learner.

Recommended Readings

The Ultimate Guide to Universal Design for Learning

How to Implement Diagnostic Assessment Examples In Your Discipline

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The Best Higher Education Books of 2022

This year saw a number of outstanding books about a host of topics in higher education, ranging from policy issues such as college costs and inequities to hot button subjects like academic freedom and online cheating. Here are my selections for the best titles for 2022.

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A Toolbox Packed with Practical Math Ideas

In The Math Teacher’s Toolbox Bobson Wong and Larisa Bukalov offer strategies, tools, resources and advice that will help any math teacher better serve middle and high school learners. Middle school teacher leader Laura Von Staden says the book should be part of all new math teacher training.

Where Reading and Writing Converge

Using the ideas in The Literacy Workshop: Where Reading and Writing Converge can transform literacy teaching, writes Linda Biondi. Authors Maria Walther and Karen Biggs-Tucker offer an easy-to-follow, research-based guide as teachers journey into making a dual reading-writing workshop a reality.

Empower Students with Metacognition Skills

In Metacognition: The Neglected Skill Set , Robin Fogarty and Brian Pete offer 30 grab-and-go strategies to help students create a new habit of mind, writes middle school director Jeny Randall. Along with tools for teaching, they invite us to hone our own metacognitive skills.

Nineteen Things Great Teachers Do Differently

Todd Whitaker has the experience, research, data, anecdotes, and feedback from teachers and administrators to help readers see what “great teachers do differently.” He reminds us of the eternal importance of educators and the impact we make, writes Linda Biondi.

How to Empower Students as Questioners

Jackie Acree Walsh’s Empowering Students as Questioners provides educators with the skills, strategies and structures to help each learner reach their potential by transforming their understanding of questioning, writes 5th grade teacher and NBCT Kathleen Palmieri.

Leadership through Connected Relationships

In Unconventional Leadership , Minnesota school leader Jessica M. Cabeen offers principals many ideas and resources to move beyond the office and become more connected, collaborative, and creative leaders, writes teacher and school PD director Becky Johnson.

All You Need to Teach Writing in Small Groups

After making a strong case for small group instruction during the writing process, Jennifer Serravallo shares how to implement and develop six types of groups in grades K-8. Teacher Jennifer Wirtz loves the access to videos of groups in action and the printables for students. Highly recommended.

How to Audit Your K-12 Literacy Curriculum

Evaluating the K-12 Literacy Curriculum is a valuable resource for facilitating teams through the overwhelming yet vital task of auditing programs, materials and instructional approaches, writes educator Abby Markley, noting its user friendly organization. “Through Colleen Pennell’s practical synthesis of literacy research and pedagogy, I am also able to see how secondary literacy instruction fits into the complex world of K-12 literacy curriculum.”

Help Kids Stop Hiding Behind Literacy Masks

Cris Tovani has written a true page turner to assist all teachers with literacy strategies that will captivate their most reluctant students. Why Do I Have to Read This? begins with insights into the many masks of reading resistance that students wear, says Linda Biondi.

20 Things That Great Principals Do Differently

In What Great Principals Do Differently Todd Whitaker sets out a clear and understandable path to success and demystifies some of the unique aspects of school leadership. Any school leader will find value, reinforcement, and solid advice, writes educator Becky Johnson.

It’s Time to Bring Back the Playful Classroom

In T he Playful Classroom Jed Dearybury and Julie Jones offer a playful guide written in a playful style with all the research and resources to create a classroom where students will be filled with joy as their learning and soft skills skyrocket, writes Laura Von Staden.

Using Guided Practice with Hesitant Readers

Literacy experts Laura Robb and David Harrison draw directly from their current middle grades teaching practice to identify the causes of reading hesitancy in grades 4-8. Their tested lessons focus on improving student reading and vocabulary using videos and high-interest texts included in the book, writes reviewer Jennifer Wirtz.

Trauma-Informed Schools to Support All Students

In Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education , Alex Shevrin Venet has written not only to inform us but also to call us to reflect and take action, writes middle school leader Bill Ivey, who anticipates readers will evaluate their practices to find areas for improvement.

Look at Student Work to See Student Thinking

With formative assessment experts Susan Brookhart and Alice Oakley as guides, teachers can uncover the clues in student work, offer effective feedback, improve lessons and plan next steps, says reviewer and ELA/ELL teacher Josefine Carrion-Dreyer.

Keys to Using Text Sets across Content Areas

Text Sets in Action provides expert guidance for any teacher interested in using this engaging strategy to deepen learning. Authors Cappiello and Dawes define “texts” broadly and provide advice and examples across the core content areas, writes teacher educator Dr. Sarah Pennington.

Knowing WHEN to Use Technology in Class

Suzanne Kelly and Elizabeth Dobler help us understand that technology, when used with intention, can help teachers augment instruction without letting it dictate what we do.They offer many tools and ideas to guide decision making as we integrate tech into our lesson plans, writes Kathleen Palmieri.

12 Characteristics of Deliberate Homework

The consistent structure of Erik Youngman’s book, its examples of implementation, and its actionable strategies will support educators as they explore the 12 characteristics of quality homework. Excellent for teams and discussion groups, says Head of Middle School Michael McLaughlin.

A Deep Look into the Middle Grades Mindset

In The Middle Grades Mindset: A Lesson Plan from A–Z , Dru Tomlin draws on his success as a principal and teacher leader to share an insightful, easy-to-read reference guide to adolescent learning. Middle level master teacher Cheryl Mizerny feels renewed after reading it. Published by AMLE.

Develop Independent and Inter-Dependent Learners

Discover the why, what and how of collective student efficacy in this research-grounded book from John Hattie, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and Shirley Clarke. Middle school teacher leader Sarah Cooper was inspired by the rich descriptions of “I” and “we” skills needed for higher-level learning.

A Game Plan to Include SEL in Every Lesson

Jeffrey Benson’s Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL shows us how – through intentional, deliberate and embedded instruction including differentiation and choice – teachers can assure all students gain the explicit and implicit SEL skills they need, writes middle level leader Todd Brist.

Writing Activities That Build Math Learning

Using informative, argumentative, personal and metacognitive writing activities, Linda S. Dacey shows how all learners can build skills and understanding in math through the writing process. Math and literacy coach Helene Alalouf highly recommends “this gem of a book.”

Sentences to Get Kids Reading and Writing

Rebecca Crockett values the work Geraldine Woods has done in creating Sentence. A Period-to-Period Guide to Building Better Readers and Writers and the expertise she shares with teachers less experienced with this method of teaching. Destined to be an oft-referenced book, says middle grades ELA teacher Crockett.

Math Curriculum for Gifted Sixth Graders

Math Curriculum for Gifted Students (Grade 6): Lessons, Activities and Extensions is a great resource for pull-out math and afterschool enrichment, differentiation in the regular or gifted classroom and more, writes middle school exceptional students educator Dr. Laura Von Staden.

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This Summer’s Best Books for Teachers – Summer Reads 2022

Author:  TeamTom Education , Tags:  Back to School , Book Lists , Lifestyle

( words) minutes to read 

What are the best books for teachers this summer (see our newest list) ? Not for the students or for the classroom, but the best books for you – the teacher. We’ll start off with the top 5 poolside books for teachers, and then we’ll move into some more early morning reads, and then the best professional books for teachers.

Best Books for Teachers, Summer 2022

This list is our top 5 faves – taken from teacher feedback, Amazon best-sellers, and our hunches after hearing from over 3,000 teachers this year. Check out this best books for teachers list, and let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

The Overdue Life of Amy Byler

“Overworked and underappreciated, single mom Amy Byler needs a break. So when the guilt-ridden husband who abandoned her shows up and offers to take care of their kids for the summer, she accepts his offer and escapes rural Pennsylvania for New York City.”

https://amzn.to/3Q5uVcB

If You Tell: A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

“After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagle’s talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now.”

https://amzn.to/3NBcLxy

In Every Mirror She’s Black

“Told through the perspectives of each of the three women, In Every Mirror She’s Black is a fast-paced, richly nuanced novel that touches on important social issues of racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism, and what it means to be a Black woman navigating a white-dominated society…Told through the perspectives of each of the three women, In Every Mirror She’s Black is a fast-paced, richly nuanced novel that touches on important social issues of racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism, and what it means to be a Black woman navigating a white-dominated society.”

https://amzn.to/3O6lCHy

Best Nonfiction Books this Summer (2022)

Okay, bear with us. This section is a bit more serious. Think of it as a good airplane book or morning coffee vs. poolside or evening wine. But the nonfiction books here are AMAZING! They’ll stir your heart, and your mind, and invigorate your spirit.

American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal

“In American Detox, organizer, yoga activist, wellness disruptor, and CTZNWELL founder Kerri Kelly sounds the wake-up call. It’s time to commit to the radical work of unlearning the toxic messages we’ve been fed–to resist, disrupt, and dream better futures of what wellness really means.”

Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“In Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through eighty-seven of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances—a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.”

Explore this book on Amazon >>

Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential

“For the first time in history, we have instantaneous access to the world’s knowledge. Yet, rather than feeling empowered, we are often left feeling overwhelmed by this constant influx of information. Discover the full potential of your ideas and translate what you know into more powerful, more meaningful improvements in your work and life.”

Best Professional Books for Teachers in 2022

We started this list with the beach reads, then on to the reflective reads, and now onto the professional books.

Fifty Strategies to Boost Cognitive Engagement: Creating a Thinking Culture in the Classroom

We love this book because of its new take on Bloom’s taxonomy…more importantly, we love how the instructional strategies are actionable and will help you build critical-thinking skills, teamwork, and creativity in any classroom!

Hacking Classroom Management: 10 Ideas To Help You Become the Type of Teacher They Make Movies About

This book is great because it’s so simple to use. Whether you’re starting out or are a veteran expert in the classroom, we promise you’ll find at least a dozen new ideas to use with your students.

The First Days of Schools

For New Teachers: We still like this Gold Standard in classroom management and establishing procedures in the classroom.

“This is the best-selling book ever on classroom management and teaching for student achievement with over 4 million copies sold. It’s practical, yet inspiring. But most important, it works!”

Nine Honorable Mentions

• The Plot: A Novel “Insanely readable.” ―Stephen King
• The Maidens: A Novel “A deliciously dark, elegant, utterly compulsive read…” ―Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author
• The Other Black Girl “Urgent, propulsive, and sharp as a knife.”
• People We Meet on Vacation “…a sparkling novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations.”
• Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals “I believe we can change the world. But first, we’ve got to stop living in fear of being judged for who we are.”
• Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle “This book is a gift! I’ve been practicing their strategies, and it’s a total game-changer.”—Brené Brown
• A Search for Common Ground: Conversations about the Toughest Questions in k-12 Education “from school choice to testing to diversity to privatization.”
• Responding to Student Trauma “…a standalone resource, as a supplement to existing programs, or as a trauma response framework.”
• This is the Canon: Decolonize Your Bookshelves in 50 Books “…the novels recommended here are in turn haunting and lyrical; innovative and inspiring; edgy and poignant.”

We hope you enjoyed this list of books for teachers. Surely there are at least 2 books to enjoy this summer! Let us know your thoughts in the comments below! Which book do you want? What book did we miss on the list? What’s a book that teachers should read this summer?

Drop a comment below.

About the Author

TeamTom Education is dedicated to creating engaging teaching resources and strategies that make learning awesome!

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The best higher education books of 2021.

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Pull up a chair and settle in with some of this year's best higher education books.

From histories to advice, investigative reporting to original research, forecasts to scholarly analysis, this year’s best higher education books have something for nearly everyone. Here’s a list of 2021’s top ten.

Nicole LaPorte’s Guilty Admissions: the Bribes, Favors, and Phonies Behind the College Cheating Scandal is an entertaining account of the unscrupulous characters and side-door schemes at play in the Varsity Blues colleges admissions scandal. Laporte details the ambitions and anxieties that made dozens of parents eager co-conspirators or gullible followers of Rick Singer, the hypomanic hustler behind the cheating, bribing and lying that many rich families used to gain their children’s admission to an elite college.

The corruption didn't stop with Singer and cutthroat parents. As Laporte documents, officials at several colleges were willing to go along with highly immoral, or obviously criminal, schemes as they lined their own pockets with little regard for the individuals or institutions they exploited.

The New PhD: How To Build A Better Graduate Education by Leonard Cassuto and Robert Weisbuch. The authors, two academicians with decades of experience in graduate education, offer a set of reforms and innovations meant to transform doctoral education into a more student-centered, career-diverse, socially engaged enterprise that enlarges the possibilities for students and expands the benefits for society. 

What Universities Owe Democrac y by Ronald Daniels (with Grant Shreve & Philip Spector) is an eloquent, impassioned defense of the university as one of “liberal democracy’s cornerstone institutions,” key to preserving and improving modern democratic societies.

The Most Rigorous Math Program You've Never Heard Of

Daniels, the President of Johns Hopkins University, explores four functions that universities provide healthy democracies: 1) promoting upward social mobility, 2) educating students to become good citizens, 3) creating and authenticating factual knowledge, and 4) cultivating a pluralistic education that prepares graduates to thrive in diverse communities.

Describing the illiberal threats facing higher education, Daniels balances a candid acknowledgement of how universities sometimes flounder in their democracy-building obligations with practical recommendations about how they can strengthen their contributions for the public good in each of the four functions. It’s a powerfully persuasive call to higher purpose.

Ronald Musto’s The Attack on Higher Education: the Dissolution of the American University is a scholarly analysis of several anti-liberal narratives threatening to undermine the modern university, analogous to the dissolution of the English monasteries in the 16th century. This analysis demands a careful reading that will be rewarded with a more complete understanding of the origins of American colleges as well as the political rhetoric and cultural movements that have periodically thrown higher education into crisis.

Musto frames his analysis around three qualities that have typified American universities throughout their history: authority, separateness and innovation. The book closely examines the right-wing forces (and some from the left as well) that are dismantling these three qualities on a number of fronts.

Anti-university narratives engulf several higher education controversies, ranging, as Musto documents, from governance to curricula, funding to campus climate, culture wars to sex scandals. Musto’s final thoughts about how higher education might rebuild an “academy governed by its own intellectual agendas and the immediate needs of students” offer some intriguing - if not likely - possibilities.

The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry, and Accomplishment by Richard Detweiler. President Emeritus of the Great Lakes Colleges Association, Detweiller presents a framework for understanding the three qualities he believes distinguish a liberal arts education: 1) content that’s primarily nonvocational, involving instead a full range of knowledge that requires the development of intellectual skills; 2) a context of study that emphasizes active pedagogy occurring in socially and affectively engaging learning communities, and 3) outcomes that improve the social good and increase benefits for others.

What sets the book apart is the empirical evidence Detweiler obtained from telephone interviews with more than 1000 college graduates, in three ages groups, who attended different kinds of institutions and had different exposure to various college experiences. Analyzing that sample, he demonstrates the strong relationships between several essentials of the liberal arts and many important outcomes involving leadership, social contributions and personal success. The interview data are supplemented with narratives written by 85 graduates of liberal arts colleges, making the book a superb source for those wanting a clear explanation of the value of the liberal arts.

Another appeal for the liberal arts is Let’s Be Reasonable: The Conservative Case For Liberal Education by Jonathan Marks, a professor of political science at Ursinus College. A student of Allan Bloom, the much-quoted critic of American higher education, Marks writes within a conservative tradition, but offers a much more nuanced portrait of higher eduction than is typical of the hyperbole and hysterics offered by some conservative pundits.

Marks says his aim is to “make a conservative case for liberal education.” In doing so, he also suggests - reasonably - that the criticisms so many conservative pundits love to lob at left-learning colleges often miss the mark. For example, “Regardless of what you may have heard, our universities aren’t governed by balding radicals and their student disciples.”

Still, Marks raises legitimate concerns about the prominence of liberal orthodoxy on many campuses and the capitulation to it that’s become too common: “Although conservatives, for the most part, can work in peace, and although not that many faculty members are on the far left, there is little appetite for challenging conventional left-wing wisdom.” 

Marks calls on universities to devote themselves to the work of cultivating reason and pride in “being reasonable,” and he warns that while such work is difficult, “if universities, distracted by other things, fail at it, students and graduates marching under...other banners are unlikely to do themselves or others much good.”

Writing in a personal, often jaunty tone, Marks laments the fact that our colleges too often offer only “bland and scattered justifications” for the liberal arts, a deficiency his book seeks -with considerable seriousness and success - to remedy.

The Agile College by Nathan Grawe. A follow-up to his Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education , Grawe explores how higher education can prepare for the changes - particularly in student enrollment - that’s coming its way over the next 15 years.

He first updates the demographic changes that will challenge the higher education market and breaks that market down further by region, student demographics and higher eduction sector. Then, based on interviews with higher education leaders of different kinds of institutions, he discusses how to grapple with these challenges.

Grawe reviews several initiatives, including more effective recruitment and financial aid, improved retention, institutional growth, revisions to academic and co-curricular programs, deliberate retrenchment efforts and more institutional collaborations, that could allow institutions to cope with the market upheavals heading their way.

The Price You Pay For College by Ron Lieber. The subtitle - “An Entirely New Road Map for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make” - sums up the purpose of this very readable advice book by the New York Times ’ “Your Money” columnist. Lieber explains a wide range of topics parents and families are likely to care about most as they make college decisions.

The issues he covers include the costs of higher education, financial aid, the admissions game, hiring a college counselor, the ROI for college graduates, the pros and cons of different kinds of colleges, 529 plans, student loans and loan debt. Lieber provides down-to-earth guidance on these and many other questions that parents have as their children reach college age.

The State Must Provide by Adam Harris. An engaging account of the history of Black colleges in America, with a focus on how and why they were created, the hard-fought battles they’ve waged, and the continuing inequities they still face. By examining pivotal Supreme Court cases on segregation, detailing the personal struggles of the students involved and documenting the long legacy of neglecting Black colleges and their students, Harris exposes the pervasive racism that’s been embedded in so many aspects of higher education and still persists, despite what Harris calls examples of “imperfect progress.”

John Thelin’s Essential Documents In The History of Higher Education, 2nd edition. Intended as a companion to his definitive A History of American Higher Education, this volume includes original documents meant to make the “dry bones” of this history come live. It’s higher ed’s story from the ground up - personal diaries, college charters, presidential speeches, student memoirs, landmark legislation, seminal reports. You name it, Thelin’s likely included an example of it, framed in his trademark scholarly, but entertaining, style.

Honorable Mentions:

• What’s Public About Public Higher Education by Stephen Gavazzi and E. Gordon Gee summarizes a national survey of Americans’ opinions about the major tensions facing public universities and offers practical suggestions for what can be done to improve their standing in a politically divided country.
• Stefano Sandrone ’s Nobel Life includes brief conversations with 24 Nobel Prize winners. Along with advice about their fields of study, the talks reveal the personalities of the Nobelists, along with their quirks, motivations, rivalries and - above all - their remarkable insights and discoveries.
• Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning In College Debt by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer. A thorough review of the history of the federal government’s role in the financing of American higher education and the impact it’s had on student indebtedness.
• The Hidden Curriculum , by Rachel Gable, draws on more than 100 in-depth interviews with students at Harvard and Georgetown to reveal the challenges first-generation colleges students face at elite colleges. Gable discusses both the similarities and the differences in the college experiences of these students compared to their continuing-generation peers.
• Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy And Academic Freedom In The Age of JFK by Matthew C. Ehrlich. Using two examples of controversial ideas espoused by faculty at the University of Illinois in the 1960s, Ehrlich explores the concepts of free speech and academic freedom and the ever-changing roles of dissent, politics and university governance.

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Our Favorite Books of 2022

As we enter our third year of a pandemic, many of us are discouraged by the state of the world. Polarization is high, people feel lonely and disconnected, and many have burned out at work or been traumatized by overwhelming loss.

This year’s favorite books offer a mixture of advice on how to address these issues through shifting our worldview, improving our social interactions and institutions, and doing what we can to increase our personal well-being. Some books teach us about how to counteract burnout, prevent the spread of conspiracy theories, view trauma differently, or reduce polarization through intellectual humility and bridge-building. Others show us how we can increase our sense of meaning in life, develop closer friendships, learn from bittersweet emotions, or use body movement to feel better. All of these books inspire hope and offer practical advice on how to create a happier, more compassionate society. 

While there are always too many worthy books to note, these were ones our staff and network of researchers found particularly interesting and helpful. We hope you, our readers, will be inspired to read and see for yourself how you can contribute to the greater good and enjoy a happier, healthier life.

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole , by Susan Cain

We all experience bittersweet feelings at times—when we are happy and sad simultaneously. It can happen when watching a fading sunset, attending our child’s wedding, or thinking of a long-lost love.

In Bittersweet , writer Susan Cain describes bittersweet feelings as “a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of the passing of time; and a curious piercing joy at the beauty of the world.” Embracing these emotions, she argues, can make our lives richer and more meaningful.

Bittersweet feelings like longing can create momentum for changing what’s wrong in our lives and lead to a renewed sense of purpose, she says. While sometimes unpleasant, they can spur spiritual growth and artistic pursuits—the creativity born of melancholy. They can also foster a greater sense of connection with others, helping us understand human pain and be more empathic.

Her overall message? Don’t push bittersweet feelings aside; use them to help you grow.

Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides , by Geoffrey Cohen

The social pain of “othering”—the disconnection, division, and loneliness created by treating people as “the other”—is so commonplace that there seems to be a “crisis of belonging,” explains psychologist Geoffrey Cohen. But Cohen hopes that this crisis can be overcome with guidance from scientific insights that help us nurture belonging in our individual daily lives and promote social change on a wider scale.

Through weaving personal stories with research, Cohen explains how to promote connection in schools, workplaces, health care, and policing. He also provides practical strategies to build bridges in our daily lives. For example, he suggests considering the role a situation plays in someone’s behavior rather than reflexively judging them as intrinsically flawed. He also recommends crafting situations in our lives to foster belonging, like when a teacher addresses his students with honorifics like “Mr. Garcia” to express respect.

Honoring the Teacher's Heart: Well-Being Practices for School Change

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“Belonging may seem like a comfortable but inessential luxury,” writes Cohen. But Belonging makes clear that it’s not only critical for individual well-being, it’s the foundation for a thriving society.

Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends , by Marisa Franco

Friendships are wrongly undervalued in our society, says psychologist Marisa Franco in her new book. While we may prioritize familial or romantic relationships, it’s friendships that often provide us with our greatest sense of belonging, intimacy, and happiness.

“We choose our friends, which allows us to surround ourselves with people who root for us, get us, and delight in our joy,” she writes. “Through friendship, we can self-select into some of the most affirming, safe, and sacred relationships of our lives.”

Franco’s book not only makes the case for developing friendship, but also shows us how to go about it: by reaching out, being vulnerable and authentic, offering affection and generosity, and managing conflicts wisely. While our attachment style can sometimes interfere with making friends, Franco gives practical guidance on how to manage psychological (and other) blocks to friendship, paving the way to deeper relationships.

I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times , by Monica Guzmán

When politics gets too polarized, people start to think they have all the answers—and they’re not interested in anything the “other side” has to say. But bridge-builder Monica Guzmán offers a radical proposition in her new book: that we recognize our own intellectual limitations and get curious about other people’s beliefs.

Guzmán, a journalist and senior fellow at Braver Angels , shares stories from across the country (and within her own household) of people who have been open and curious enough to get to “I never thought of it that way” moments—that point in a conversation when you see beyond your own worldview, beliefs, and perspective. Along the way, she offers tips for staying curious, having more productive conversations, and avoiding the traps that pull us back into our silos.

If today’s polarization has you beyond frustrated, Guzmán’s book may offer you some hope—and enough nitty-gritty advice—to make bridging our differences actually seem possible.

Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most , by Cassie Holmes

Many people feel they don’t have enough hours in the day to do everything they’d like to do. But in Happier Hour , researcher Cassie Holmes shows why (for many people) this attitude is wrong-headed. With some simple changes, she argues, we can prioritize what matters most and craft a happier life.

Holmes encourages us to evaluate our current use of free time and how much pleasure or meaning we derive from our activities. Then, she offers evidence-based tips on how to expand our sense of time and use time more wisely—by lessening technology use, nurturing relationships, bundling unpleasant activities with pleasant ones, being present, experiencing awe and gratitude, and more.

Even the busiest among us can be more intentional about how we spend time—and should aim for more meaningful, positive experiences if happiness is our goal, she argues. “This is the time of your life, and you can’t let it go to waste.”

The Burnout Challenge: Managing People’s Relationships With Their Jobs , by Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter

How can we stop the burnout epidemic? In The Burnout Challenge , scientists Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter explain the causes of burnout and how to counteract it—not just individually, but on a widespread basis.

While many employers pressure employees to prevent burnout in themselves with self-care (mindfulness training, exercise, therapy, and more), Maslach and Leiter argue that workplaces need to change, too. The feelings of exhaustion, disengagement, and lack of efficacy associated with burnout fester in places that don’t provide workers with reasonable workloads, appropriate recognition, supportive colleagues, a sense of autonomy and meaning, or fair treatment.

The solutions to burnout may be multi-pronged, but the book provides concrete ideas that can make a difference. The authors write, “If you take these lessons to heart and start putting them into practice, you can make progress toward making the experience of work more fulfilling, motivating, and viable—for yourself or, as a manager, for others in your organization.”

The Myth of Normal , by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté

“Life…it’s just the way it is.” Per Gabor and Daniel Maté, this view is wrong. Living doesn’t have to be taxing. Ill-being doesn’t have to be accepted. Trauma doesn’t have to be prevalent. Our emotional, physical, and spiritual decay isn’t normal. That’s the myth.

In The Myth of Normal , the authors use science, inspiring stories, and clinical wisdom to demonstrate that we really are products of our environment. For example, they argue that our childhood experiences—and living in a culture where loneliness, materialism, and addiction are common—shape our entire being. Indeed, chronic mental and physical illness are less likely byproducts of “bad” genes and more likely byproducts of harmful circumstances.

In this wide-ranging, poetically written book, the authors offer “pathways to wholeness” including authenticity, compassion, and cognitive restructuring. Follow their advice, and you may be able to achieve a different kind of normal.

The Sleep Prescription: Seven Days to Unlocking Your Best Rest , by Aric Prather

Tired of paying interest on “sleep debt”? In Aric Prather’s book, we learn about how ordinary behaviors and choices in daily life disrupt natural sleep processes and what we can do to get our sleep back.

The consequences of inadequate or poor-quality sleep are dire. You get sick more easily, often, and for longer and feel more pain; you are cognitively duller and your memory’s impaired; you are less empathic, friendly, and likable.

To avoid this, Prather offers a weeklong “recipe” of research-backed techniques for improving sleep, beginning with creating a sleep diary to establish the status quo. For each sleep-building technique, Prather shares intriguing stories from his sleep clinic at UCSF, flexible options for implementation, and a full explanation of the biology behind why it works.

You don’t need a prescription to benefit from reading The Sleep Prescription . As Prather writes, “When you sleep better, your whole life improves, creating a foundation for health and well-being.”

The Altruistic Urge: Why We’re Driven to Help Others , by Stephanie Preston

To witness suffering or imminent harm is to feel a deep impulse to do something about it. Beneath thoughts and feelings that affect our likelihood of taking action, our motivation to get involved comes first.

Stephanie Preston’s book The Altruistic Urge explains where that impulse to help comes from. Countering the pervasive belief that humans are primarily self-serving and aggressive, Preston’s book establishes mutual caregiving and protection as essential to evolutionary success. Her research with rodents, primates, and humans connects the altruistic urge to neurobiological pathways and circuits deep in the brain, and makes the case that wanting to assist each other is a hardwired, adaptive survival reflex that originates from our genetic mandate to keep offspring safe.

While we can think ourselves out of helping or blunt the altruistic urge with cultural norms and structural forces in society, what makes it come to life is simply believing that we can successfully help.

Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational , by Michael Shermer

If you wonder how people can possibly fall for crazy conspiracy theories, look no further than Michael Shermer’s book, Conspiracy .

Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, explains how conspiracy theories get traction by appealing to people’s long-held beliefs or prior experiences, tribal affiliations, and need to feel safe. And they can easily spread due to social-psychological factors, like confirmation bias , our tendency to oversimplify complex problems, and our desire to reduce anxiety.

Though we may think conspiracy theories appeal only to the naïve or uneducated, Shermer dispels that myth, showing how pervasive they really are. Fortunately, his book doesn’t leave readers feeling overwhelmed or powerless, but offers a primer on how not to be duped—and how to help others who’ve fallen prey to conspiracies.

Shermer calls on everyone to fight the spread of conspiracy theories. “It remains not just the domain of conspiracy theorists, but instead belongs to anyone who is curious and desires to understand the truth.”

Procrastination: What It Is, Why It’s a Problem, and What You Can Do About It , by Fuschia Sirois

In Procrastination , psychologist Fuschia Sirois goes very deep into the science of putting things off. In doing so, she reveals quite a lot about how the human mind works and solves problems.

Sirois doesn’t want for you to make things worse by beating yourself up; indeed, she argues that the key to overcoming procrastination involves accepting your feelings and then embracing tactics like self-compassion and self-forgiveness to help you move past them. “When we see procrastination as being mainly an issue of difficulty in coping with negative emotions, then it becomes clear that if we want to reduce procrastination we need to understand and reduce the sources of these emotions,” she writes.

“Why we might see a task as being unpleasant, or why we may feel stressed from thinking about doing even the simplest of tasks, can vary across people, tasks, and circumstances,” says Sirois. It’s that compassionate understanding of procrastination as a very individual problem that will help readers to overcome it—in themselves, but also in coaching students, employees, and family.


 The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships, and Who We Are , by Michael Slepian

Is keeping a secret a bad thing? It may depend on the secret, your reasons for keeping it, and how much it weighs on your mind. In ethics professor Michael Slepian’s book, The Secret Life of Secrets , readers learn how ubiquitous secret-keeping is, the most common subjects of people’s secrets, and why secrets can sometimes harm us.

“People don’t like to be alone with their thoughts, and having a secret can evoke feelings of shame, isolation, and uncertainty,” writes Slepian. If a secret causes you to feel this way or to ruminate on negative aspects of yourself, it’s probably good to find a different way to cope, like processing your feelings or confiding in someone you trust.

Yet some secrets are best kept private, lest they harm relationships or reputations unnecessarily or prevent a greater good (think whistleblowers keeping their evidence secret until the big reveal). Slepian offers guidance on how to decide whether to keep or reveal a secret, while recognizing that the choice must always be ours alone.

Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth , by Wahinkpe Topa and Darcia Narvaez

How can we solve today’s global challenges? In their book, researchers Wahinkpe Topa and Darcia Narvaez propose creating a more “sacred, unified, and moral” way of being in the world based on ancient Indigenous wisdom. And they provide guidance on how to achieve that.

They describe an Indigenous “kinship worldview” as “not about domination or self-centeredness or anthropocentrism, but rather about collaboration and unification across human groups, animal species, plant species, waterways, mountains, everything that’s alive.” In the book, Indigenous leaders offer their perspective on topics such as community, nature, and death, followed by the authors providing scientific findings and personal experiences to help validate each leader’s message. For example, in a chapter on “heart wisdom,” Aleut elder Ilarion Merculieff describes the importance of centering ourselves in our heart to gain humility and wisdom—supported by research linking the heart’s vagal tone to more wise, humble reasoning.

Overall, the book offers hope for creating a more harmonious world.

Humble: Free Yourself From the Traps of a Narcissistic World , by Daryl Van Tongeren

Why would you want to read a book about humility? After all, many of us are probably looking to bolster our confidence—and unless we’ve been called arrogant by a partner or boss, humility is probably low on our self-improvement list.

But humility has many surprising benefits, explains researcher Daryl Van Tongeren in his new book. It can help us accept ourselves for who we are, have more authentic relationships, and achieve more success in life.

Van Tongeren’s book also dispels many myths about what humility is, including how it is different from modesty and can actually go hand in hand with confidence. And he offers concrete tips on how to cultivate it that can help you be more open to feedback and less defensive.

Ultimately, humility is a skill that can not only help us as individuals in our close relationships but also as a society confronting the pressing issues of our time—which requires us to acknowledge where we might be mistaken and learn from each other.

Move: How the New Science of Body Movement Can Set Your Mind Free , by Caroline Williams

Sitting may be “the new smoking,” but the ills of a sedentary lifestyle don’t just affect our physical health but our mental health, too, writes journalist Caroline Williams in her new book Move .

Our human bodies evolved to move, she explains, and when we don’t move enough, they send signals to our brain that can create underlying feelings of depression or anxiety, insecurity or uncertainty. On the flipside, moving and building strength can create positive changes in our bodily systems that, when passed along to the brain, give us a subtle sense of happiness, confidence, and positivity.

Williams’s book provides an overview of the different types of movement we can do to bring about different benefits for our minds—from walking and dancing to core work and stretching. And she offers tips for incorporating mood-boosting, mind-nourishing movement into our busy lives.

“Moving is at the heart of the way we think and feel,” Williams writes. “If we stay still, our cognitive and emotional abilities become seriously compromised.”

About the Authors

Jill Suttie

Jill Suttie, Psy.D. , is Greater Good ’s former book review editor and now serves as a staff writer and contributing editor for the magazine. She received her doctorate of psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1998 and was a psychologist in private practice before coming to Greater Good .

Kira M. Newman

Kira M. Newman is the managing editor of Greater Good . Her work has been published in outlets including the Washington Post , Mindful magazine, Social Media Monthly , and Tech.co, and she is the co-editor of The Gratitude Project . Follow her on Twitter!

Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas

Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas, Ph.D. , is the science director of the Greater Good Science Center, where she directs the GGSC’s research fellowship program and serves as a co-instructor of its Science of Happiness and Science of Happiness at Work online courses.

Maryam Abdullah

Uc berkeley.

Maryam Abdullah, Ph.D., is the Parenting Program Director of the Greater Good Science Center. She is a developmental psychologist with expertise in parent-child relationships and children’s development of prosocial behaviors.

Jeremy Adam Smith

Jeremy Adam Smith edits the GGSC’s online magazine, Greater Good . He is also the author or coeditor of five books, including The Daddy Shift , Are We Born Racist? , and (most recently) The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good . Before joining the GGSC, Jeremy was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

Jeffrey Froh

Jeffrey J. Froh, Psy.D. , is a writer and professor of psychology at Hofstra University. He’s the founder, past clinical director, and now research director of the Positive Psychology Institute for Emerging Adults. His books include Making Grateful Kids and Thrive: 10 Commandments for 20-Somethings to Live the Best-Life-Possible .

Vicki Zakrzewski

Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D. , is the education director of the Greater Good Science Center.

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The Ultimate Best Books of 2022 List

Reading all the lists so you don't have to since 2017.

Another year of books comes to a close, and with it, the obligatory frantic listmaking—which at its best may inspire reminiscing, reconsidering, and excellent gift-purchasing, but at its worst may inspire hurt feelings, overwhelm, and doom-scrolling. But I’m not here to judge, or to save us. I’m just here to count.

So here at the end, as is annual Literary Hub tradition , you will find the big list of lists—aka the biggest popularity contest in books (probably). This year, I worked through 35 lists from 29 publications (yes, there are even more lists out there , but we’re all going to die some day), tallying a total of 887 books. 84 books were highlighted on 4 or more lists, and I have collated those for you here, in descending order of frequency. Read, enjoy, and try not to feel bad:

Hernan Diaz, Trust Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

Jennifer Egan, The Candy House Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You Namwali Serpell, The Furrows

Margo Jefferson, Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir

Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch Hua Hsu, Stay True: A Memoir Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts

Rachel Aviv, Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us Kate Beaton, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands Julia May Jonas, Vladimir Emily St. John Mandel, Sea of Tranquility Kathryn Schulz, Lost & Found

Elif Batuman, Either/Or Chloé Cooper Jones, Easy Beauty: A Memoir Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead Yiyun Li, The Book of Goose Sarah Thankham Mathews, All This Could be Different

Amy Bloom, In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss Jessamine Chan, The School for Good Mothers Abdulrazak Gurnah, Afterlives R.F. Kuang, Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution Elizabeth McCracken, The Hero of This Book Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human George Saunders, Liberation Day Stacy Schiff, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

NoViolet Bulawayo, Glory Ada Calhoun, Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died Leila Mottley, Nightcrawling Meghan O’Rourke, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Jennifer Croft, The Books of Jacob Nghi Vo, Siren Queen Elizabeth Williamson, Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth

Claire-Louise Bennett, Checkout 19 Margaret A. Burnham, By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners Isabel Cañas, The Hacienda John Darnielle, Devil House Annie Ernaux, tr. Alison L. Strayer, Getting Lost Xochitl Gonzalez, Olga Dies Dreaming Pekka Hämäläinen, Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America Ling Ma, Bliss Montage: Stories Ian McEwan, Lessons Lydia Millet, Dinosaurs Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go In the Dark Maggie O’Farrell, The Marriage Portrait Fintan O’Toole, We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez Yoko Tawada, tr. Margaret Mitsutani, Scattered All Over the Earth Linda Villarosa, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation Kevin Wilson, Now is Not the Time to Panic Javier Zamora, Solito: A Memoir

Kate Atkinson, Shrines of Gaiety Isaac Butler, The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to ACT Ingrid Rojas Contreras, The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir Angie Cruz, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water Viola Davis, Finding Me: A Memoir Rob Delaney, A Heart That Works Akwaeke Emezi, You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty Percival Everett, Dr. No Jonathan Freedland, The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Kim Fu, Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century Beverly Gage, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century Kerri K. Greenidge, The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family James Hannaham, Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta Emily Henry, Book Lovers Adam Hochschild, American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis Mieko Kawakami, tr. Sam Bett & David Boyd All the Lovers in the Night Dahlia Lithwick, Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger Joanna Quinn, The Whalebone Theatre Deanna Raybourn, Killers of a Certain Age Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green, Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice Dani Shapiro, Signal Fires Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow Lea Ypi, Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History

List of lists surveyed:

The New York Times’ s 100 Notable Books of 2022 •  The New York Times’ s 10 Best Books of 2022 •  TIME’ s 100 Must-Read Books of 2022 • Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of the Year 2022 • The Washington Post’ s 50 notable works of fiction • The Washington Post’ s 50 notable works of nonfiction • The Washington Post’ s 10 Best Books of 2022 •  Entertainment Weekly’ s Best Books of 2022 • Vulture’s Best Books of 2022 • The New York Public Library’s Best Books for Adults 2022 • Publishers Weekly’s Best Books 2022 • Kirkus’s Best Fiction Books of the Year • Kirkus’s Best Nonfiction Books of the Year • The New Yorker’ s Best Books of 2022 • Oprah Daily’s Favorite Books of the Year •  The Chicago Tribune’ s 10 Best Books of 2022 • The Los Angeles Times’ s 20 Best Books of 2022 • Slate’s 10 Best Books of 2022 (Laura Miller) • Slate’s 10 Best Books of 2022 (Dan Kois) • BuzzFeed’s 25 Books From 2022 You’ll Love •  USA Today’ s Best Books of 2022 • BookRiot’s Best Books of 2022 • Goop’s 6 Best Books of 2022 • Reader’s Digest’s 10 Best Books of 2022 • Vox’s 16 best books of 2022 • The Marginalian’s Favorite Books of 2022 • Powell’s Best Books of 2022 •  Foreign Affairs’  The Best of Books 2022 •  The Philadelphia Inquirer’ s Best books of 2022 • NPR’s Best Books 2022 (Maureen Corrigan) • NPR’s Notable books from 2022 according to our critics • Tor.com’s Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2022 • Amazon’s Best Books of 2022 •  People’ s Top 10 Books of 2022 • and of course, Literary Hub’s 38 Favorite Books of 2022 .

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Here are the Books We Love: 400+ great 2022 reads recommended by NPR

Maureen Pao

Meghan Collins Sullivan

Natalie Escobar

Koko Nakajima

NPR's Books We Love returns with 400+ new titles handpicked by NPR staff and trusted critics. Find 10 years of recommendations all in one place – that's more than 3,200 great reads.

Open the app now!

As publishers of insights, we believe that reading books can be a powerful tool for learning, growing, and navigating the landscape of today’s complex business environment. And books can both illuminate and provide moments of respite from the demands of daily life. McKinsey Global Publishing leader Raju Narisetti returns with McKinsey’s 2024 annual book recommendations list—a McKinsey Global Publishing tradition—featuring suggestions from 50-plus CEOs and global leaders in media, nonprofit, and other organizations, as well as several McKinsey leaders.

This year’s contributors spanned six continents and shared more than 90 books across ten genres. Fiction emerged as the most popular genre recommendation, followed by personal development. The standout favorite among our contributors? Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity was endorsed by five leaders. Technology was also a popular category, with AI as a major focal point—a mirror of the technological zeitgeist shaping our era. Dive in to find your next great read, and scroll to the bottom of the page to download the full list.

What to read next: McKinsey’s 2024 annual book recommendations

More on books.

McKinsey Global Publishing’s 2024 book picks

McKinsey on Books

Author Talks

Revisit previous years’ summer reading lists.

2023 summer reading guide

2022 summer reading guide

We still know what you’re reading this summer

Comments and opinions expressed by interviewees are their own and do not represent or reflect the opinions, policies, or positions of McKinsey & Company or have its endorsement.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It takes a village to curate amazing lists from a busy group of leaders from all over the world. We wish to thank Alan Alper, Aria Finger, Ashley Huston, Deron Triff, the Forum of Young Global Leaders at the World Economic Forum, Mariana Fischbach, Preeti Wali, Rebecca Lowell Edwards, Rimjhim Dey, Silvia Wiesner, and Vinay Sridhar for their contributions to this publication.

Special thanks to McKinsey Global Publishing colleagues Amanda Soto, Dan Spector, Diane Rice, Eleni Kostopoulos, Emily Adeyanju, Janet Michaud, Kanika Punwani, Martine Louis, Mary Gayen, Mike Borruso, Nathan Wilson, Pamela Norton, Philip Mathew, Sean Conrad, Stephen Landau, and Victor Cuevas for making this list come alive.

And thank you to the contributors and their organizations for providing McKinsey Global Publishing with their photographs and permission to use them.

We hope you have enjoyed our annual reading list. Please let us know how we could have made it even more enjoyable or useful for you: drop us a note at [email protected] .

A.I. Will Fix the World. The Catch? Robots in Your Veins.

In “The Singularity Is Nearer,” the futurist Ray Kurzweil reckons with a world dominated by artificial intelligence (good) and his own mortality (bad).

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Nathaniel Rich is the author, most recently, of “Second Nature: Scenes From a World Remade.”

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THE SINGULARITY IS NEARER: When We Merge With A.I. , by Ray Kurzweil

A central conviction held by artificial intelligence boosters, but largely ignored in public discussions of the technology, is that the ultimate fulfillment of the A.I. revolution will require the deployment of microscopic robots into our veins.

In the short term, A.I. may help us print clothing on demand, help prevent cancer and liberate half of the work force. But to achieve its greatest aims — immortality, superhuman intelligence, the elimination of all our social ills — we must infuse our blood with millions of self-replicating diamondoid robots.

Why don’t we hear more about the blood robots? Their arrival is only a few years away — at least according to Ray Kurzweil, a godfather of A.I., our foremost technological prophet and a “principal researcher and A.I. visionary” at Google.

“The Singularity Is Nearer” follows Kurzweil’s 2005 “The Singularity Is Near,” and several other heraldic works of tech futurism that have become sacred texts to the current generation of A.I. utopians. In his latest, Kurzweil boasts of his greatest hits: his prediction, in the late 1980s, that a global information network would be universally accessible by the late 1990s, and that mobile devices linked to this network would appear by the turn of the century; his 2018 prediction that, within two years, a neural net would be able to analyze radiology images as well as human doctors, a feat accomplished by Stanford researchers two weeks later; and his 1999 prediction that an A.I. capable of convincingly impersonating a human being would appear by 2029 — which now may seem conservative.

In “The Singularity Is Nearer,” Kurzweil promises that, by 2029, A.I. will be “better than all humans” in “every skill possessed by any human.” During the 2030s, solar power, enhanced by A.I.-driven advances in 3-D printing, will come to dominate the global energy supply, most consumer goods will be free, and the “dramatic reduction of physical scarcity” will “finally allow us to easily provide for the needs of everyone.” Sounds rad!

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• Disclaimers
• Tables, Graphs and Boxes
• Acknowledgements
• PISA in the pandemic
• Adjudicated entities not meeting the sampling standards
• Adjudication entity not reaching a strong level of comparability
• Data underlying the figures
• International averages
• Rounding figures
• Reporting student data
• Reporting school data
• Focusing on statistically significant differences
• Abbreviations used in this report
• Further documentation

What students know and can do: student performance

Equity in education.

• PISA 2022 key results (infographic)
• OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
• What is unique about PISA?
• Which countries and economies participate in PISA?
• Key features of PISA 2022
• Where can you find the results?
• PISA 2022: an unprecedented performance drop
• A level playing field for all students: inclusive and fair learning
• Student socio-economic background and performance
• The long view
• Gender and immigrant background
• Education systems that combine strong performance with equity in education
• Student performance and equity in education as covered in this volume
• Average performance in mathematics, reading and science
• Variation in performance within and between countries and economies
• Ranking countries’ and economies’ performance in PISA
• What students can do in mathematics
• What students can do in reading
• What students can do in science
• Equal opportunity by student socio-economic status
• Equal opportunity in terms of student gender
• Equal opportunity in terms of education system
• Inclusive education
• From fairness and inclusion to equity in education
• Three benchmarks for interpreting performance changes over time
• Changes in performance between 2018 and 2022
• Changes in equity between 2018 and 2022
• Changes in performance throughout countries’ participation in PISA
• Trends in mean performance
• Trends among high- and low-achieving students
• Changes in the proportion of 15-year-old students at different levels of proficiency
• Average 10-year trend in performance, taking into account changes in enrolment rates
• Changes in equity in education over the last decade
• Students with an immigrant background in PISA
• Disparities in student performance by immigrant background
• Trends in disparities in performance by immigrant background
• Examine why student performance declined so sharply
• Provide all students with opportunities to fulfil their potential regardless of their backgrounds, and tailor policies to education systems’ particular contexts
• Study resilient systems where learning, equity and well-being were maintained and promoted despite pandemic-related disruptions
• The construction of reporting scales
• Summary descriptions of the proficiency levels of mathematical subscales
• Indices from the student context questionnaire
• What is the PISA target population?
• How were students chosen?
• What proportion of 15-year-olds does PISA represent?
• Definition of schools
• The distribution of PISA students across grades
• Standard errors, confidence intervals, significance test and p-values
• Range of ranks (confidence interval for rankings of countries)
• Statistics based on multilevel models
• Parity index
• Odds ratios
• Differences in test administration
• Comparability of computer-based and paper-based tests
• Countries’ preferred items
• Link errors
• Adjusted trends
• Comparing the OECD average across PISA assessments
• Self-reported effort
• Behavioural indicators
• Adaptive Testing Design for Mathematics in PISA 2022
• Adaptive Testing Design for Reading in PISA 2022
• Annex B1. Results for countries and economies
• Annex B2. Results for regions within countries
• Annex B3. PISA 2022 system-level indicators
• Unit CMA123 – Solar System
• Unit CMA150 – Triangular Pattern
• Unit CMA156 – Points
• Unit CMA161 – Forested Area
• Overview of performance trends in Albania
• Overview of performance trends in Argentina
• Overview of performance trends in Australia
• Overview of performance trends in Austria
• Overview of performance trends in Baku (Azerbaijan)
• Overview of performance trends in Belgium
• Overview of performance trends in Brazil
• Overview of performance trends in Brunei Darussalam
• Overview of performance trends in Bulgaria
• Overview of performance trends in Cambodia
• Overview of performance trends in Canada
• Overview of performance trends in Chile
• Overview of performance trends in Colombia
• Overview of performance trends in Costa Rica
• Overview of performance trends in Croatia
• Overview of performance trends in Cyprus
• Overview of performance trends in Czech Republic
• Overview of performance trends in Denmark
• Overview of performance trends in Dominican Republic
• Overview of performance trends in Estonia
• Overview of performance trends in Finland
• Overview of performance trends in France
• Overview of performance trends in Georgia
• Overview of performance trends in Germany
• Overview of performance trends in Greece
• Overview of performance trends in Guatemala
• Overview of performance trends in Hong Kong (China)
• Overview of performance trends in Hungary
• Overview of performance trends in Iceland
• Overview of performance trends in Indonesia
• Overview of performance trends in Ireland
• Overview of performance trends in Israel
• Overview of performance trends in Italy
• Overview of performance trends in Japan
• Overview of performance trends in Jordan
• Overview of performance trends in Kazakhstan
• Overview of performance trends in Korea
• Overview of performance trends in Kosovo
• Overview of performance trends in Latvia
• Overview of performance trends in Lithuania
• Overview of performance trends in Macao (China)
• Overview of performance trends in Malaysia
• Overview of performance trends in Malta
• Overview of performance trends in Mexico
• Overview of performance trends in Moldova
• Overview of performance trends in Montenegro
• Overview of performance trends in Morocco
• Overview of performance trends in Netherlands
• Overview of performance trends in New Zealand
• Overview of performance trends in North Macedonia
• Overview of performance trends in Norway
• Overview of performance trends in Panama
• Overview of performance trends in Paraguay
• Overview of performance trends in Peru
• Overview of performance trends in Philippines
• Overview of performance trends in Poland
• Overview of performance trends in Portugal
• Overview of performance trends in Qatar
• Overview of performance trends in Romania
• Overview of performance trends in Saudi Arabia
• Overview of performance trends in Serbia
• Overview of performance trends in Singapore
• Overview of performance trends in Slovak Republic
• Overview of performance trends in Slovenia
• Overview of performance trends in Spain
• Overview of performance trends in Sweden
• Overview of performance trends in Switzerland
• Overview of performance trends in Chinese Taipei
• Overview of performance trends in Thailand
• Overview of performance trends in Türkiye
• Overview of performance trends in United Arab Emirates
• Overview of performance trends in United Kingdom
• Overview of performance trends in United States
• Overview of performance trends in Uruguay
• PISA Governing Board
• PISA 2022 National Project Managers
• OECD Secretariat
• Mathematics Expert Group (MEG)
• Extended Mathematics Expert Groups (eMEG)
• Financial Literacy Expert Group (FLEG)
• Creative Thinking Expert Group (CTEG)
• Questionnaire Expert Group (QEG)
• QUESTIONNAIRE SENIOR FRAMEWORK ADVISORS
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Executive Summary

PISA 2022 assesses reading, science, and, as its main subject, mathematics. Being proficient in mathematics today is more than the mere reproduction of routine mathematical procedures. Rather, PISA considers a mathematically proficient person to be someone who can mathematically reason their way through complex real-life problems and find solutions by formulating, employing and interpreting mathematics.

In mathematics

Singapore scored significantly higher than all other countries/economies in mathematics (575 points) and, along with Hong Kong (China)*, Japan, Korea, Macao (China), and Chinese Taipei, outperformed all other countries and economies in mathematics. Another 17 countries also performed above the OECD average (472 points), ranging from Estonia (510 points) to New Zealand* (479 points).

An average of 69% of students are at least basically proficient in mathematics in OECD countries. This means they are beginning to demonstrate the ability and initiative to use mathematics in simple real-life situations.

In 16 out of 81 countries/economies participating in PISA 2022, more than 10% of students attained Level 5 or 6 proficiency, meaning they are high-performing: they understand that a problem is quantitative in nature and can formulate complex mathematical models to solve it. By contrast, less than 5% of students are high-performing in 42 countries/economies.

In reading and science

Singapore scored significantly higher than all other countries/economies in reading (543 points) and science (561 points). Behind Singapore, Ireland* performed as well as Estonia, Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei while another 14 education systems performed above the OECD average in reading (476 points), ranging from Macao (China) (510 points) to Italy (482 points).

In science, the highest-performing education systems are Singapore, Japan, Macao (China), and Chinese Taipei, Korea, Estonia, Hong Kong (China)* and Canada*. Finland performed as well as Canada* in science. In addition to these nine countries and economies, another 15 education systems also performed above the OECD average in science (485 points), ranging from Australia* (507 points) to Belgium (491 points).

About three out of four students have achieved basic proficiency in reading and science in OECD countries.

In reading and science, an OECD average of 7% of students attained the highest proficiency levels of 5 or 6. In 13 countries/economies, more than 10% of students are top performers in reading. In 14 countries/economies, more than 10% of students are top performers in science.

Trends in performance

No change in the OECD average over consecutive PISA assessments up to 2018 has ever exceeded four points in mathematics and five points in reading: in PISA 2022, however, the OECD average dropped by almost 15 points in mathematics and about 10 score points in reading compared to PISA 2018. Mean performance in science, however, remained stable. The unprecedented drops in mathematics and reading point to the shock effect of COVID-19 on most countries.

Only four countries and economies improved their performance between PISA 2018 and 2022 in all three subjects: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic and Chinese Taipei.

Trend analysis of PISA results reveals a decades-long decline that began well before the pandemic. In reading and science, performances peaked in 2012 and 2009, respectively, before dipping while performance began a downward descent in mathematics before 2018 in Australia*, Belgium, Canada*, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Korea, the Netherlands*, New Zealand*, the Slovak Republic and Switzerland. 

Four countries and economies are bucking this trend of long-term decline: Colombia, Macao (China), Peru, and Qatar. Their results have improved on average in all three subjects over the full period they have participated in PISA. Four other countries (Israel, Republic of Moldova, Singapore and Türkiye) have improved in two out of three subjects.

Education systems in Canada*, Denmark*, Finland, Hong Kong (China)*, Ireland*, Japan, Korea, Latvia*, Macao (China) and the United Kingdom* are highly equitable by PISA’s standard (combining high levels of inclusion and fairness).

The percentage of 15-year-olds enrolled in school in Grade 7 or above in each country/economy ranges from 36% in Cambodia and 48% in Guatemala to 90% or more in 34 countries and economies.

Socio-economically advantaged students scored 93 points more in mathematics than disadvantaged students on average across OECD countries. The performance gap attributed to students’ socio-economic status is greater than 93 score points in 22 countries or economies and 50 points or fewer in 13 countries or economies. 

Boys outperformed girls in mathematics by nine score points and girls outperformed boys in reading by 24 score points on average across OECD countries. In science, the performance difference between boys and girls is not significant.

Non-immigrant students scored 29 points more than immigrant students in mathematics on average across OECD countries but non-immigrant students scored only five points more than immigrant students once socio-economic status and language spoken at home had been accounted for.

An average of 8% of students in the OECD area reported not eating at least once a week in the past 30 days because there was not enough money to buy food. In 18 countries/economies, more than 20% of students reported not being able to afford to eat at least once a week.

Trends in equity

The socio-economic gap in mathematics performance did not change between 2018 and 2022 in 51 out of the 68 countries/economies with available PISA data; it widened in 12 countries/economies and narrowed in five (Argentina, Chile, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).

The gender gap in mathematics performance did not change between 2018 and 2022 in most countries/economies (57 out of the 72 with comparable data); it widened in 11 countries/economies and narrowed in four (Albania, Baku [Azerbaijan], Colombia and Montenegro).

This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Member countries of the OECD.

This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area.

The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law.

Note by the Republic of Türkiye The information in this document with reference to “Cyprus” relates to the southern part of the Island. There is no single authority representing both Turkish and Greek Cypriot people on the Island. Türkiye recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Until a lasting and equitable solution is found within the context of the United Nations, Türkiye shall preserve its position concerning the “Cyprus issue”.

Note by all the European Union Member States of the OECD and the European Union The Republic of Cyprus is recognised by all members of the United Nations with the exception of Türkiye. The information in this document relates to the area under the effective control of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.

Kosovo*: This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244/99 and the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Kosovo’s declaration of independence.

Photo credits: Cover © Halfpoint/Shutterstock.com.

Corrigenda to OECD publications may be found on line at: www.oecd.org/about/publishing/corrigenda.htm .

© OECD 2023

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO ( CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO ).

• Best overall
• Most comfortable
• Best for travel
• Most stylish
• Best minimalist
• Most spacious
• Best gym bag
• Best storage
• Best for taller students
• Best budget
• Best sporty
• Best expandable
• Best for outdoors
• Best convertible

The 14 best backpacks for college students, tested and reviewed

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As any college student knows, your backpack is the most important accessory you'll wear all year. We tested the best backpacks for college students on their ability to carry a day's worth class essentials neatly and comfortably. Naturally, we also looked for the best-looking ergonomic designs — our favorites look sleek and polished, even when filled to their brim.

We found the overall best backpack for college students to be The North Face Recon Backpack . Men's style editor Amir Ismael especially liked its ultra-supportive straps, chest and back clips that distribute weight evenly, as well as its defined pockets for your laptop, books, water bottle, and phone. For something a little more fashionable yet still as functional, I love the popular Dagne Dover Dakota for the plush straps, luxe look, and neat removable compartments.

You can also save 30% off our favorite convertible backpack during Lo & Sons' Summer Sale .

The top 5 best backpacks for college students we tested:

The legendary North Face Recon is comfortable, durable, and comes with a lifetime warranty.

Beyond the sustainability factor, it’s a great college bag because of its padded laptop and tablet sleeves and side pockets. It also has an outer, small pocket that’s at the perfect spot to quickly grab something like a sweater or snacks.

It’s perfect for a student who’s carrying a 15-inch laptop with a nice load of books and random accessories, like headphones, a water bottle, beauty products, and assorted highlighters.

The easily recognizable neoprene bag has a stylish, luxe look on the outside and clever compartments on the inside. It comes in three sizes and nine colors.

Students can utilize this bag's padded 15-inch laptop compartment along with its two side pockets. It has a 25 liter main compartment, containing two mesh slots and extra outer pockets for storing smaller items.

Best overall: The North Face Recon Backpack

When searching for the best backpacks for college students, we look for durability, functionality, and style. Undoubtedly, The North Face Recon Backpack is the perfect combination of everything you need.

It features a medium-size main compartment with a laptop sleeve, a front mesh pocket filled with practical separations for all of your smaller devices and writing utensils, and two water bottle pockets on the sides. One of the best features of this backpack is the chest and back clips meant to alleviate back pain when carrying heavier loads, and the shoulder straps are well padded as well for optimal support. We also include the Recon in our guide to the best backpacks for students , as it makes a great confidence-boosting gift for pupils heading off to a new school. In terms of style, its minimal design and array of colorways make this a versatile choice for those who use a backpack for work or when traveling in addition to on campus.

Most comfortable: Patagonia Refugio Backpack 28L

Patagonia is one of our favorite B-corp retail companies and we appreciate it's eco-conscious approach to outdoor gear. What we love most about its Refugio backpack is how plush the padding feels on the shoulders and its sternum strap that balances heavy cargo, preventing extra pressure on the spine.

The Refugio's recycled nylon structure makes a great candidate for the best college backpacks because of its high-quality feel, protective laptop and tablet sleeve, and side pockets. It also has a small outer pocket that's in the perfect spot for quickly grabbing something like a sweater or snacks.

Best for travel: JanSport Main Campus FX

JanSport's Main Campus FX is a top rated travel backpack . It's perfect for a college student who's carrying a 15-inch laptop with a heavy load of books and random accessories like headphones, a water bottle, beauty products, and assorted writing utensils. The padded straps make carrying its weight a bit breezier. Its dedicated laptop pocket is nicely padded, and there are two other full-size compartments, making room for anything and everything. It also has a keychain in the front pocket to keep your dorm or apartment keys handy. JanSport's Right Pack is also a helpful but downgraded option that's probably best for the techie who has gone paperless.

The Main Campus FX is great for students when they're in school and even after they graduate. Not only is it built perfectly for carrying books and laptops, but it's also versatile, making it easy to use for everything from classes to road trips to the gym.

Most stylish: Dagne Dover The Dakota

If you like a minimalistic design with ample space and clever compartments, this neoprene bag will be your saving grace. The Dakota comes in three sizes, all of which are water-resistant, shock-absorbent, and complete with sleek straps. Inside, there are pockets galore, so no space is wasted. The laptop compartment in the large version fits a 16-inch laptop, which is bigger than the average college device. The main compartment holds up to 20 liters and has a mesh tablet pocket, five medium-sized pockets, and a convenient detachable pouch. Two exterior pockets can carry your water bottle and a stash of snacks. 

We can confidently say this luxury backpack fits everything you'd ever need: a laptop, tablet, textbooks, water bottle, notebook, snacks, and a spare pair of shoes. On the outside, it looks chic and simple, but inside, it gives you all the power to be your most organized self. It even has a nearly-invisible slip pocket by the handle where you can keep small items like a snack or headphones. 

One of our favorite features is the luggage handle sleeve that allows you to slide the backpack onto any carry-on you're wheeling around. Read more in our full Dagne Dover Dakota backpack review .

Best minimalist: Vera Bradley Campus Backpack

For the college student with a maturing style and an appreciation for a spacious bag, this may be a great stylistic and functional choice. It has a gently padded 15-inch laptop compartment along with two side pockets for a water bottle. It has a sizable 25-liter main compartment containing two mesh slip pockets and outer pockets to store smaller items. It zips smoothly, has comfortable straps ergonomically designed for women, and a luggage handle on the back.

This is one of the best college backpacks that combines utility with a minimalistic look. The small brand tag is monochromatic and located on the side, so it blends in with the rest of the backpack. Once you open its pockets, you get a pop of paisley pattern and personality.

Most spacious: L.L. Bean Comfort Carry Pack

This backpack is all about functionality, protecting your laptop, and basic storage. The Comfort Carry Pack has a spacious 30-liter capacity, but not an extravagance of pockets. There's a main compartment with a laptop pocket as well as a second compartment with an organizer for pencils. Made with a chest belt, hip belt, and padded straps, this is a great choice for going between school and other activities. The bungee cords on the front are also a perfect place to store one last bulky item, like a jacket or sweatshirt.

Best gym bag: Lululemon Everyday Backpack 2.0

Lululemon's lightweight Everyday Backpack does exactly what a college backpack needs to do without too many frills. The wider-set bag has a 23-liter capacity and a padded laptop pocket that fits a 16-inch device. It's made with a water-repellent fabric, two side pockets for water bottles, inner mesh pockets, and a small outer pocket. It has a luggage sleeve and the minimalistic logo doesn't scream "I love Lululemon." While not made of the thickest material, the popular fitness brand's Everyday Backpack is designed with exactly what a college student needs. The sleek shape and neutral colorways also mean it can go with lots of different looks, making this one of the best backpacks for college students who tote around their workout clothes with their textbooks.

Best storage: Carhartt Medium Pack + 3 Can Insulated Cooler

The Carhartt Medium Pack, bundled with the three-can insulated cooler, might be one of the best college backpacks for hauling books and lunch. The backpack is made from Cordura, an incredibly durable ripstop material that's also been treated to be water-repellent. The outside of the bag features a mesh pocket for a water bottle, a Hook-n-Haul system for adding extra items like the insulated cooler, and air-mesh shoulder padding. The inside of the bag has plenty of practical storage compartments. From the 15-inch laptop sleeve to the fleece-lined eyewear compartment, you can keep all of your belongings organized and easily accessible. 

"My favorite feature is the attached cooler. It can fit up to three 12-ounce cans, but it's also the perfect spot to keep snacks or a lunch for days when you have a packed schedule of classes. And when you're not on campus, it's perfect for hiking, trips to the beach, or anywhere else you'd want to enjoy a cold drink while on the go. It's also easily removable if you prefer to carry the backpack without it." — Amir Ismael, style editor

Best for taller students: Herschel Little America Backpack

The Herschel Little America backpack is a classic carryall with a deceiving name. With its spacious 25 liters and nicely padded laptop compartment, the pack is made to help you carry everything you need for school while sporting a timeless style. The main compartment is like a huge pit where you can fit a lot of things: books, snacks, tech, and more. It also has two small side pockets on the inside. Little America is easily expandable and easily collapsible. The single outer pocket is perfect for storing quick things you may need throughout your day.

The backside is thoroughly padded for comfortable carrying. Though, personally, we think this backpack works best on taller people since it's 19.25 inches long. On an average-height woman, the bag is a bit overwhelming on a shorter back.

Best budget: Carhartt 25L Classic Laptop Backpack

We've tested the now-retired Carhartt Classic Work Pack, but thankfully, the 25 L Classic Laptop Backpack is an excellent upgrade. It's water-repellent, durable, and accommodates a medium-size cargo load. Thanks to its front zippered pocket with key ring clip and separated mesh slots for your phone, notebooks, or pens, you won't lose any of your smaller items at the bottom of the bag.

It has a dedicated 15-inch laptop sleeve at the back of the main compartment, and this new model even comes with side pockets of water bottle storage. You can get it in the classic brown colorway that the Michigan-made workwear brand is recognized for.

Best sporty: The North Face Borealis Backpack

The North Face is known for making durable and high-quality gear and the Borealis Backpack, one of the brand's most classic styles, is no different.

The 28-liter size fits just about everything you need for class and then some. It has the standard features: a nicely padded laptop pocket, a spacious main compartment, side pockets for water bottles, a small fleece-lined outer pocket, and a bigger outer pocket with pockets and places for pens. It's built with a chest and hip belt, making it useful for hikes too.

There's also a small but thoughtful feature to appreciate: U-pull zippers that make unzipping any of its pockets 10 times easier. The Borealis Backpack may not have a bunch of hidden compartments in the niftiest spaces, but it does what it needs to with quality materials made to last a long while. And for the same price, the Women's Borealis is specifically designed to fit a slighter build.

Best expandable: Fjällräven Kånken Laptop 15"

I see this backpack all the time on my college campus, and here's why: The compact rectangular design can be expanded, making it especially versatile. The sleek look makes this a functional piece as well as a nice addition to almost any outfit. It has three pockets: a laptop pocket, main compartment, and outer pouch. The laptop pocket is well padded and the zipper is tucked away in the back. The straps are nice and soft, though oriented differently than the typical backpack, and it has two side pouches that can be used to store a water bottle and possibly even an umbrella. Read more about its upgraded version in our full Fjällräven Tree Kånken review . 

Best for outdoors: Eddie Bauer Adventurer Backpack 2.0

We tested Eddie Bauer's previous Adventurer backpack, but their 2.0 version is even better. It stands out as one of the best backpacks for college students because of its versatility and durability. They aren't kidding when they say this backpack is for adventures — it has a hydration-compatible compartment and two water bottle pockets for your next hike to campus. As for its functionality, this backpack has a unique side access 17" laptop pocket and small fleece-lined front pockets for your smaller items. This water-repellent bag is built to battle with you all through college and after. 

Best convertible: Lo & Sons The Rowledge

Sometimes a tote is more convenient to access your belongings at a moment's notice, but the one-shoulder design is bound to cause more discomfort than two straps. Instead of deciding between the two, the Rowledge combines them into one convertible laptop bag.

"I was successfully able to fit two bags worth of stuff into the Rowledge , and its convertible style came in handy on a crowded train. As more and more people filed in, I had to remove my bag from my back and hold it by my side. I was able to secure the backpack straps within the travel sleeve and firmly grip my bag via the handbag handles. The conversion was so easy that I didn't even realize I walked onto the train with a backpack and exited with a handbag," says Francesca Rea, former Story Production Manager. Read more in our full Lo & Sons Rowledge Backpack review . 

You can purchase logo and accolade licensing to this story here . Disclosure: Written and researched by the Insider Reviews team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partners. We may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at [email protected] .

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